Pilots are deprived of important visual cues during night, or Instrument Meteorological Condition (“IMC”) flying. In some cases pilots are presented with false-ambient-visual cues. These problems often cause the pilot to misperceive the position, and/or motion of the aircraft with the plane of the earth's surface. This phenomenon is known as spatial disorientation, and can lead to costly or catastrophic accidents.
In other words, when a pilot flies at night, during IMC flight, when air-to-air refueling, and/or other low visibility situations, he is deprived of important visual cues, which can cause disorientation, and problems judging closure. These are dangerous problems, and can cause a catastrophic mishap; especially for an inexperienced pilot.
Disorientation and difficult judging closure are further exacerbated when pilots fly with Night Vision Goggles (“NVGs”). During flight using NVGs, significant portions of the flight are usually conducted using unaided night vision. However, when pilots transition between NVG flight, and unaided-night-vision flight, problems occur because the pilot is not dark adapted. This phenomenon blocks most of the pilot's ability to perceive low-light cues, many of which are critical to maintaining situational awareness, and spatial orientation of the aircraft.
For military pilots flying close formation, losing sight of the lead aircraft can be a very disorienting situation for the wingman; especially when transitioning from visual-orientational cues from the lead aircraft to instrument flight (referred to as “Going Lost Wingman”). Since instrument flight requires conscious information processing, pilots can become overwhelmed when experiencing a Going Lost Wingman situation.
Many attempts have been made to solve the foregoing problems by providing pilots with attitude-orientation cues. For example, Artificial Horizons (attitude Indicators), and Head-Up Displays are commonly used in aircraft today to provide attitude-orientation cues. But these instrument displays (i.e., attitude indicates) often fail to improve the pilot's situational awareness, and spatial orientation during night flying, IMC flying, or when transitioning between NVG-aided flight, and unaided-night-vision flight.
In addition, during a high-workload situation, pilots often become overwhelmed, and fail to notice critical-orientation information being disseminated from these visual instruments.
Thus, heretofore there are no adequate solutions to improve a pilot's situational awareness and spatial orientation; especially when a pilot is involved in high-workload events, such as during IMC flying (during attitude cross checking), an upset condition, or other high-stress or high-demand-flight conditions that require the immediate attention of a pilot.
Consequently, spatial disorientation and loss of situational awareness by a pilot are significant factors in many airplane accidents. The definition of spatial disorientation is the failure to correctly orient oneself with respect to the Earth's surface due to misinterpretation of the aircraft's position and/or motion. All pilots are susceptible to sensory illusions. Pilots who perceive a conflict between bodily senses, and an aircraft's flight instruments, and can't resolve the conflict are spatially disoriented.
Allowed to continue, a spatial-disorientation episode can lead to an aircraft mishap involving Loss of Control Inflight (LOC-I), or Controlled Flight Into Terrain (CFIT)—the two leading causes of commercial aviation fatalities. Attention to flight instruments, and a good cross-check are the keys to remaining spatially oriented, but these actions place an additional workload on pilot's processing.
To reduce the workload on a pilot, today's modern aircraft are often equipped with flight directors, autopilots, auto-throttles, flight-management systems, glass cockpits (i.e., a cockpit that features digital flight instruments displays), and ground-collision-avoidance systems. When used properly, these automated systems contribute to flight safety, and reduce pilot workload. But these systems fail to prevent a pilot from becoming spatially disoriented, or prevent an aircraft mishap. In other words, pilots often become complacent with or improperly use these automated system, and consequently, still become spatially disoriented.
For instance, data from the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board shows that between 1993 and 2002, there were 2,131 fatalities in loss of control accidents, and that some of these fatalities were attributable to airplane upsets. See Docket No. SA-531 Exhibit No. 14-M, National Transportation Safety Board Washington, D.C. Flight Safety Digest, July.
A more recent industry source reports that there were 17 LOC-I accidents, and 16 CFIT accidents resulting a total of 2,509 fatalities. See “Statistical Summary of Commercial Jet Airplane Accidents Worldwide Operations|1959-2014” (www.boeing.com/news/techissues/pdf/statsum.pdf, August, 2015).
It is believed that spatial disorientation accounts for nearly a third of all mishaps, with a fatality rate of nearly 100% in military aviation.
Statistics also show that before the advent the present invention, between five percent and ten percent of all general aviation accidents are attributed to spatial disorientation, with 90% of these accidents being fatal.
Still further, a recent 10 year review, reveals that at least 11% of serious rotor wing flight accidents—i.e., resulting in at least $50,000 in aircraft damage, or at least one day of work absence (AR 385)—were linked to spatial disorientation.
These accident and fatality statistics suggest that before the advent of present invention that: (1) the problems of Spatial Disorientation and Loss of Situational Awareness persists; and (2) a solution to help pilots cope with these problems is not being adequately solved by the aforementioned automated-flight systems used in today's modern aircraft.
In sum, heretofore, there were no adequate solutions to improve a pilot's situational awareness and spatial orientation; especially when a pilot is involved in high-workload events, such during IMC flying (during attitude cross checking), night or stormy flight, NGG flight, an upset condition, or other high-stress or high-demand-flight conditions that require the immediate attention of a pilot.